50 Famous Winnie Mandela Inspirational Quotes

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October 18th, 2022

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was a South African anti-apartheid activist and politician, and she was also the 2nd wife of Nelson Mandela.

Winnie Mandela served on the ANC's National Executive Committee and headed its Women's League. She was a public figure with a huge following and her supporters referred to her as the "Mother of the Nation".

Winnie Mandela won the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award. She received a Candace Award for Distinguished Service from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women in 1988.

We've put together an incredible collection of the best Winnie Mandela quotes to read.

Here they are:

50 Famous Winnie Mandela Inspirational Quotes

Inspiring Winnie Mandela Quotes On Freedom

I was so hooked by the fight for freedom that nothing mattered to us so long as we fulfilled the dream of years and years of our people being liberated. I thought normal life would come the day after. - Winnie Mandela

I don't say we should have performed miracles, but surely there ought to have been a difference between the apartheid regime and the governance of the ANC after 17 years. - Winnie Mandela

They think because they have put my husband on an island that he will be forgotten. They are wrong. The harder they try to silence him, the louder I will become. - Winnie Mandela

The government can become so elitist and concentrate on elitist interests. To help the government, you must constantly hold its attention. - Winnie Mandela

I learned to deal with the police... to be tough... to survive. - Winnie Mandela

I identify... with the ideas that Malcolm X stood for. - Winnie Mandela

To me, David Astor was a freedom fighter. To me, he wasn't just a journalist; he was a freedom fighter. - Winnie Mandela

Politicians are not lovers. - Winnie Mandela

The brutality of apartheid drains you of that emotion of fear if you have gone through everything you can be put through in the process of harassment. - Winnie Mandela

I don't want a grand villa in a rich suburb alongside white people where many of my former comrades choose to live. I would never betray my roots in that way. - Winnie Mandela

Mandela did go to prison, and he went in there as a burning revolutionary. But look what came out. Mandela let us down. - Winnie Mandela

I wanted to be a doctor at some point, and I was always bringing home strays from school: people who were too poor to pay fees or have food. My parents never rebuked me or told me that they were hard-pressed, too. - Winnie Mandela

I knew what it is to hate. - Winnie Mandela

When I was born, my mother was very disappointed. She wanted a son. I knew that from a very early age. So I was a tomboy. - Winnie Mandela

This name Mandela is an albatross around the necks of my family. - Winnie Mandela

We cannot pretend we do not have problems; we cannot pretend things are not wrong in our country. A lot of things are wrong. - Winnie Mandela

I was married to the ANC. It was the best marriage I ever had. - Winnie Mandela

My continent knows more about me than I do myself. - Winnie Mandela

You build dreams, you build castles in the air, and you hope that at least part of that will be realized, even under apartheid. - Winnie Mandela

I'm not ashamed of anything I've ever done in the name of fairness and justice for my people. - Winnie Mandela

I am not the sort of person to carry beautiful flowers and be an ornament to everyone. - Winnie Mandela

No one under international copyright law has the right to depict me or my husband without our consent. I have been surprised by the many people, particularly Americans, who are either writing books or going to produce films about the Mandela family without even bothering to consult us. - Winnie Mandela

Those 18 months in solitary confinement... bruised my soul. If I had had a weapon, I would have fought my way out. There is nothing the government has not done for me. There isn't any pain I haven't known. - Winnie Mandela

We should have sent the apartheid monsters to jail, not let them off with an amnesty. - Winnie Mandela

Famous Winnie Mandela Quotes On Life

We talk of a rainbow nation - in a country that remains dichotomized between black and white. We must acknowledge that the rainbow, in fact, is still a dream. - Winnie Mandela

It dawned on me then that you either had to survive apartheid, or you had to perish with it. And I decided to survive. - Winnie Mandela

As much as the South African racist regime is prepared to fight to the last man, so are we determined to fight to the bitter end. - Winnie Mandela

It is any wife's dream to lead a normal life with her family. - Winnie Mandela

The life of the President's First Lady would not have been for me. And I don't know how I would have been as a housewife. - Winnie Mandela

The ANC has failed to address the problems of the black majority quickly enough. - Winnie Mandela

The years of imprisonment hardened me... Perhaps if you have been given a moment to hold back and wait for the next blow, your emotions wouldn't be blunted as they have been in my case. When it happens every day of your life when that pain becomes a way of life... there is no longer anything I can fear. - Winnie Mandela

I am a living symbol of the white man's fear. I never realized how deeply embedded this fear is until I came to Brandfort. - Winnie Mandela

I often wonder why I attract so much criticism. - Winnie Mandela

I'm like thousands of women in South Africa who lost their men to cities and prisons... I stand defiant, tall, and strong. - Winnie Mandela

Nelson was locked up on Robben Island, and wives like me had been warned we would bring our husbands home as corpses from that place. But I always believed he would be released. It was my duty to have a home ready for us. - Winnie Mandela

The solution to this country's problems lies in black hands. - Winnie Mandela

In the normal course of things, journalists want their story, and as soon as they are through with it, they pack their cameras and go. That was never the impression that David Astor gave when you were interviewed by him. It was far deeper than that. - Winnie Mandela

I never talk about my private life. It would be a most despicable thing to suggest I would exploit the poor for my own personal gain. - Winnie Mandela

We have a shared destiny, a shared responsibility to save the world from those who attempt to destroy it. - Winnie Mandela

I am not sorry. I will never be sorry. I would do everything I did again if I had to. Everything. - Winnie Mandela

You all must realize that Mandela was not the only man who suffered. There were many others - hundreds who languished in prison and died. Many unsung and unknown heroes of the struggle. - Winnie Mandela

I believe in myself and the justice I've fought for all my life. - Winnie Mandela

One of the greatest things I fear is letting down my people. I wouldn't live with that type of conscience, of having let down my people after they've been brutalized for so long. - Winnie Mandela

I have a good relationship with Mandela. But I am not Mandela's product. I am the product of the masses of my country and the product of my enemy. - Winnie Mandela

We shall liberate our country. - Winnie Mandela

I will not allow the selfless efforts of my husband and his friends to be abandoned. I will continue the struggle for a free and equal South Africa. - Winnie Mandela

There is no longer anything I can fear. There is nothing the government has not done for me. There isn't any pain I haven't known. - Winnie Mandela

It is only when all black groups, join hands and speak with one voice that we shall be a bargaining force that will decide its own destiny. - Winnie Mandela

They think because they have put my husband on an island that he will be forgotten. They are wrong. The harder they try to silence him, the louder I will become! - Winnie Mandela

We have no guns — we have only stones, boxes of matches, and petrol. Together, hand in hand, with our boxes of matches and our necklaces, we shall liberate this country. - Winnie Mandela

It was in the townships where we shed so much blood. Nothing could have been achieved without the sacrifice of the people. Black people. - Winnie Mandela

I believe something is very wrong with the history of our country and how we have messed up the African National Congress. - Winnie Mandela

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